The Death of Truth: What's Wrong With Multiculturalism, the Rejection of Reason and the New Postmodern Diversity

by Dennis McCallum (Editor)

Whatever Happened to Truth?America is in the midst of a revolution in thinking that impacts every conceivable aspect of life. Postmodernism, the guiding spirit of our times, teaches that things like reason and rationality are cultural biases, and that truth--especially God's truth--doesn't exist. A society that forsakes truth believes thatAll lifestyles, religions, and worldviews are equally validThe only real sin is criticizing someone else's views or moral choicesOpinions matter as much as evidenceReality is in the mind of the beholder.Not since Charles Darwin confronted Christians with his doctrine of naturalistic evolution has the church faced a challenge for which it is so ill-prepared. We are witnessing The Death of Truth.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Christian, Theology, Spirituality, Christianity

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Dennis is Lead pastor of Xenos Fellowship, which is a grassroots house church planting ministry. Since beginning the group as a student Ohio State University, during the Jesus movement, he has remained interested in reproducing church features found in the New Testament. Xenos focuses on Bible exposition at its meetings, and most of Dennis' books focus on Bible teaching.

Reviews

[Moriah · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first it was difficult to know where the different authors were going - all the examples given of the effects of postmodernism: do they consider these effects good or bad? It got more clear toward the end, and the last couple chapters were excellent in clearly delineating how postmodernism is incompatible with Christian thought. In the last bit, the author zeroes in on what our culture now considers 'sin'. He points out, "Most postmodernists aren't against religion. They are only against religious teaching that holds to objective truth and usefulness of reason." (p. 203) Overall, the book does well in showing how postmodernism is often internally contradictory.

[Cj Rhodes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fire book, ahead of it's time!

[Geoff Steele · Rating 3 out of 5]

This books discusses the Post-Modernism concept and compares it with Modernism and Biblical Christianity. Post-Modernism rejects the concept of an absolute truth or standard, hence the title. Unlike Modernism, which elevated Reason and Logic as the only path for truth, Post-Modernism rejects reason and logic as valid methods to ascertain the truth or reality. Post Modernism takes into account the bias of an individual and culture and comes to the conclusion that what may be real to one person (or true) is not true or real to another. Truth is relative and changing. Of course this makes no sense if one believes God is the author of truth. Specific examples of Post-Modernism are explored in various fields such as Law, History, Psychology, Science, Arts, etc. and compares both with Modernism and Biblical Christianity. There are a few points of Post-Modernism that Christians can agree with, one being that man is not capable explain everything through science, however, the differences between the worldviews greatly outweigh the agreements. Post-Modernism is a slippery thing to grasp, and self-contradictory as well. In claiming there is no absolute truth is a circular argument. Post-Modernisms is a reaction to Modernism’s failed attempt to answer mankind’s problem. Post-Modernism leads to both Nihilism and Hedonism. This seems evident in our culture.

[Dave J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost depressing... but if you want to understand where trump came from this really helps. Motivated me to check out mein kempf to better understand the correlation between trump and hitler... 95%ish. You don’t have to look far in mein kemp to see this. Trump=scary.

Just finished reading Hitler: Downfall 1939 to 1945 which helped shed more light on the similarities and differences. A few similarities… lack of compassion for anyone, a very flexible sense of ‘the truth’ (basically lied) considered everyone else as stupid, an un canny ability to capitalize on societal fears and concerns. A difference or two.. hitler had a consuming hatred of jews and had a vision of gaining living space for his country. The trump vision is all about him.

[Brett · Rating 1 out of 5]

A one-sided critique of Postmodernism’s affect on contemporary society, The Death of Truth decries the undermining of traditional views regarding knowledge, religion, and cultural hegemony. More specifically, McCallum analyzes the Postmodernist influence in health care, literature, education, history, psychotherapy, law, science and religion. An intriguing approach and analysis, which ultimately cannot overcome its one-sidedness - D

[Hank Pharis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great spelling out of the implications of the Postmodern worldview which dominates our culture today. What does it mean to live in a world where there are no truths? Modernism certainly had major flaws but at least it believed that there was truth out there to be discovered. This book shows how the denial of truth impacts our approaches to history, education, literature, psychotherapy, law, science, and religion by leaders in each of these fields.

[Candice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant analysis of postmodernism. My favorite quote is from Chapter Nine on page 158, "Postmodernism can help us to see that knowing the 'truth' doesn't come naturally to us. We indeed do construct - or, more honestly, misconstruct - the truth more often than we like to admit. And our misconstructions are usually self-serving."

[Dennis Mccallum · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was the first book to critique the emergent church movement, before it was called that.

[Joe Ricciardi · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been over 15 years since I read this book but i remember learning some good history from it and was stimulated to explore deeper by its take on Post Modernism.